Erik is officially off the market. That’s right, you read it girls. Your chance has ended. My brother is officially off the open market and headed for marriage.

Erik made his announcement a day after proposing to his girlfriend of five weeks. That’s right five weeks. They’ve set a tentative date for February 23. I’m still in shock.

I’m happy for him. I really am. I know he wanted to settle down and I hope that he found the right person to do that with.

I’m just a little concerned. Five weeks is not a long time to get to know someone. And I’m not a big advocate on getting engaged a month and a week after you met someone. There’s just too much to learn about each other.

I know if you’re in the relationship you think you already know everything there is to know about the other person, truth is you don’t. I still am learning things about Lis that I didn’t know when we got hitched a little over four years ago. 

Either way, Lis and I have determined that there is no such thing as the Terrible Two’s, its all about the Trying Three’s. Unless Lukas’ attitude stops in the next two weeks – before he turns three – its clearly obvious that the upcoming third season of Lukas looks to be especially tiring and trying on our minds and body.

Lukas continues to grow both in his own body and mind. His vocabulary grows every day, often saying words that I didn’t know he knew or should say. And he’s very independent. Which is sometimes scary, sometimes fun to see, and often the reason for his new found attitude.

Everyone always mentions the Terrible Two’s, so about this time last year we were a little weary entering his second season expecting a tough and challenging time. He’d cry and we’d think it was the Terrible Two’s. But for the most part Year No. 2 wasn’t hard or challenging. That’s until the last couple of months.

Now he screams and throws a fit when we want to put on his sweater, jacket or football jersey. We ask him to go and wash his hands before dinner and it’s, “No thank you” or just the plain ol’ “No!” When we tell him to go pee he stands there and tells us, “It don’t work Mama, it don’t work.” It’s hard to get him to take a bath, sit down and eat, get dressed or brush his teeth at night. All this was easy a year ago. No problem whatsoever.

One note: He seems to do just fine falling asleep at night. We no longer need to cage the door hoping he won’t get out. This problem was really bad last year when Lukas would scream and cry and try to escape the gate that was outside his door.  

And it’s not just Lis and I that feel this way. Lukas’ buddy Hudson just turned 3-years old and in the months leading up to his third birthday he was driving his folk’s nuts by storing food in his cheeks and not eating dinner. My co-worker of mine says his soon-to-be 3-year-old is being a “dickhead”. See, we’re not alone.

So, what now? Do we have a year of him telling us “Never!” and fussing every time we want him to use the bathroom, get in the car or eat? Do we wait it out and hope that he ends in a few months? Either way, it looks like we’re in for a frustrating, trying, yet sometimes entertaining year. It’s a good thing I work two jobs…hehe.

I always enjoy when people have left comments on my blog postings. I especially enjoy when they ask questions, which gives me something to write about!

I’ve added a new and revised “Guestbook” to my site. Feel free to drop in there and ask me questions about anything. I’d be happy to share a story, tell you how I feel about something, or just randomly ask questions. Doesn’t that sound exciting? You bet it does!

Leslie from “Leslie’s Home Spot” recently left a comment and asked me about Lukas going to preschool.

We did not enroll Lukas in preschool this year, opting to wait a year before putting him in school. He will be going to the 2-3 year old classes at our church during Sunday school, beginning this Sunday.

Since Lukas turns three in October, we didn’t think it was necessary that we put him into preschool right away. If he begins school this year, won’t he have to go back and do preschool again next year?

Lis will instead do a little “home-school, preschool” herself. She did some research on the ol’ reliable internet (always good for information) and found some books and information on how to do preschool from home. Isn’t preschool basically colors, shapes, numbers, finger-painting and sandbox? Plus, it’s kinda expensive to do preschool, isn’t it?

We’ll see how he does at Sunday school and go from there.

Let’s see what else…

Saturday we took a two-hour trip to Wenatchee to visit my parent’s at their dog show. It’s mine and Lis’ favorite dog show because it a) takes place outside, b) the weather is always nice and c) feels like a weekend getaway because of the mini-road trip we take. Koby took Best of Breed in the Flat-Coated Retriever section then lost in the Sporting Group.

We hung out at the motor home with the folks, had some lunch, drank some watermelon martinis that Dad made, and watched Lukas enjoy his time well spent with his grandparents. There was a scary moment when Lukas was playing inside the motor home, standing on the stairs and pretending to serve me food.

He pushed the door and it opened, causing the lil’ man to fall off the stairs, land head first on the pullout stairs and do a flip onto his back and onto the hard ground. I didn’t see what happened and went to pick him up, but my Dad told me not to pick him up just to see if he was okay. Dad picked him up and we made sure everything was working fine. Sure enough, after a minute of crying he was back at ‘em. I guess he landed on his head, doing a headstand, and then flipped over. It caused a nice little bruise on the bridge of his nose but it could’ve been more serious.

The second scary moment came in the bathroom of the restaurant we were eating at (Note: never eat a “taco wrap” it’s essentially a burrito, but not as tightly wrapped). I took Lukas into the bathroom to go pee. As I unzipped, he went and attempted to put both hands on the pee-stained bottom of the men’s urinal. With my Dad-like reflexes I turned to him (with Mr. Winky out in the open), grabbing his hands telling him, “No, no, no.” He was startled and cried but I had saved his hands from gobs of germs, and nightmares for me.

Sunday we went to church and I came home to watch my TiVo’d version of the Colts-Titans game. Now that I’m older I’ve found that I don’t have a team I desperately root for. What I mean by “desperately root for” is that there isn’t a team that gets me all excited when I watch them, causing me to jump off of the couch and scream at the TV. Not until Peyton Manning and the Colts came along. Now I do that, and its fun!

It’s not fun, however, losing in all four of your fantasy football leagues and both of your fantasy baseball leagues. It was a horrible Sunday for me. Lis just laughed at my frustration; I didn’t think it was funny though. I don’t like to lose, and to lose six times in one day sucked big time. 

That reminds me! I bought a new memory card for our camera and it holds like 3,000 photos! I’m so pumped to use it all up some day!